1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of device operability with regard to devices of a computer system. More specifically, the present invention relates to the field of device and driver compatibility within a computer system for device configuration.
2. Prior Art
Computer systems are composed of a variety of different components or "devices" that operate together to form the resultant system. Typically, some of the devices are supplied with the computer system initially, such as a central processing unit and a communication bus, and some devices can be installed into the computer system after the initial configuration of the system. In any event, in the general case, each device has an associated driver that, among other functions, configures the device and allows the device to be operable within the overall system. Drivers are typically software instructions that can be loaded into the computer system's memory and when executed will communicate with the device to properly configure the device for operation. The driver may initialize the device so that the device can function and the driver may also allow the device to communicate normally within the overall system. Since installed devices can be altered and since new devices can be inserted into a configured computer system, it becomes important to match the proper driver to the proper device for reliable operation of the computer system.
In the past, devices were matched with their proper driver by strict one to one correspondence that was typically manually performed by the computer system user. That is to say, the computer system user would alter the contents of a system file that was read at computer "boot" and this system file would contain a list of drivers that the computer system recognized and would associate a particular driver to a particular device according to an inflexible listing. The driver first needed to be loaded into the computer system before the system file was updated by the computer user so that the system would recognize the driver. This system is referred to herein as "hard coding" the drivers to their associated devices. While workable in some respects for knowledgeable computer users, this system is undesirable for computer users that do not have the know how to perform the proper matching between a given device and its driver or for those that do not know the location of the proper driver. It would be desirable, then, to provide a mechanism and method for reducing problems associated with configuring the proper driver with its associated device in a computer system. The present invention provides such advantageous solution.
In a particular systems, a PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) standard is adopted wherein a device driver name can be associated with a device. This name can be placed inside the device's memory. However, the PCI standard does not require that each device provide a name for the its associated driver. Therefore, there is not a guaranteed one to one correspondence between a device name and its associated driver for all system devices. If a driver does not provide its own driver name, then the system constructs a pseudo name using the device vender information and also the device type. However, this vender information and device type might correspond to more than one device. In such case, a driver might correspond to more than one device but will only operate with one device. This unfortunate case increases the difficulty in properly assigning a device to its driver. What is needed is a mechanism and method that overcomes the above problem. The present invention provides such solution.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a mechanism and method for efficiently and effectively correlating a computer system device with its proper device driver. It is an object of the present invention to provide the above with an automatic procedure that determines an appropriate driver, from among a set of drivers, for a particular device of a computer system. It is also an object of the present invention to perform the above for all devices of the computer system. It is yet another object of the present invention to utilize the above to facilitate computer users in configuring computer systems after a modification thereof that might involve adding or altering a computer system device which would then require a device driver update. These and other objects of the present invention will become clear within discussions of the present invention presented herein.